Focal Utopia 165W - Page 3

**lizardking** · 08-12-2005, 09:32 PM

I don't think anyone mentioned that an alternator draws current...lol...That was a typo I meant to say headlights....lol...Anyway your headlights draw a lot of power, put your DMM on the battery for a amp test and see how fast the DMM without an amp clamp will blow... What he's trying to point out is the Big 3 is a waste of time and money. The alternator on a automobile is not a complex piece of equipment with huge potential.. Your alternator is limited on the current it produces NO matter how big your wire is... Look at a road tractor, your not going to find 1/0 gauge wire on the alternator..lol..Trust me I know. Yes, you will find 00 gauge wire on the battery's to the starter because you need hell of a lot of juice just to turn it over... Your going to find mostly 8 gauge wiring on the alternator providing power to a tractor.. If you don't believe it then experiment with it, buy an DMM with an amp clamp and see how much the alternator is putting out with different wire guage... You will be surprised at the results to say the least... Your talking about an alternator that can't put out 130 amps unless your running your truck at 9000RPM.... My god if and automobile alternator was able to produce more power by having a bigger wire then you should upgrade to 2/0 wire...LOL Your one of those unfortunate people like I was at one time who believe in the car audio myths.. You should go out and buy 8 gauge twisted shielded speaker wire and then get some $1000 patch cables....and while your at it buy all Class A/B amps that draw 200 amps a piece..

**lizardking** · 08-12-2005, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justintoxicated

I just read this part also LMAO

"and running a giant wire from the alt to the battery is totally silly--------the tenth of a volt or so that might be gained would have virtually NO effect on the battery or stereo---------and no amount of ignorance or flawed measurements or idiotic conclusions will change that fact..............RC"

The idea is not to increase the voltage, it is to increase the current. And to reduce the Resistance. Where did this guy learn his physics?

He's making fun of the guy!!!

Nestor · 08-12-2005, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lizardking

The use of caps have always been debateable and probably will continue to be debateable. It's like RC says it's not that they don't work you just need a low ESR cap but they usually don't last long.. Cap's are used on every electronic equipment form AC to DC sources. As the cap putting a drain on my system maybe if I was running a 1 farad cap. But you fail to realize that I'm running a 35 Farad cap. My bass will not use that much power before it can recharge. Are caps a waste? It depend what you want to use one for and the application its intended for. Caps smooth out voltage which helps in reducing heat in your amps as well. One of the worst things for a amp is to have fluctuating voltages from 10-14 volts. You need to have as much consistency in your voltages as possible.. For the average guy with less then 1000 watts I would not worry about having a cap. Read up on the Big 3 he proved it wrong with ohms law, I'm not saying he's right but you or I can't change it. If you want not to have dimming lights then you would need smaller wire...The bigger the wire the more current the headlights can draw, can't argue that its facts... Headlights draw a lot of power and the BIG 3 won't do anything to prevent it. It will actually help to make it worse since power flows from the path of leaset resistance. I made the mistake and upgraded my battery to the yellow top which did nothing and does nothing... I also did the Big 3 which don't work, I made myself believe it did, but it don't. We can add all the 00 guage wire you want and its not going to do anything to improve our systems.. Speaker wire, buy the cheapest you can get. Patch cables, buy a cheap sheilded set and thats it.. Amp's, no audible differences in amps its been proven and proven and proven. We can debate about car audio until the end of time... We tend to believe our ears and not the science behind it. By the way I don't like RC, I think he's irrogant and be littles people on the forum because we don't understand Science the way he does...

Richard Clark's quotes may sound arrogant, however they should be judged after reading the entire threads from which they were taken.

From the threads I've read, RC usually weighs in when a discussion devolves into inane arguments and facts have been tossed aside. You know the thread is going downhill when a member starts spouting "Yeah, but in the REAL world..."

I've never seen RC belittle someone for asking a question. However, if you plan to disprove ohm's law...

**lizardking** · 08-12-2005, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nestor

Richard Clark's quotes may sound arrogant, however they should be judged after reading the entire threads from which they were taken.

From the threads I've read, RC usually weighs in when a discussion devolves into inane arguments and facts have been tossed aside. You know the thread is going downhill when a member starts spouting "Yeah, but in the REAL world..."

I've never seen RC belittle someone for asking a question. However, if you plan to disprove ohm's law...

RC keeps proving people wrong but I guess it gets tiresome to keep having to explain the same things over and over again.. I think he's awaken a lot of people in car audio to the real facts. I know I was one of them who believed in the "car audio myths".

Justintoxicated · 08-12-2005, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lizardking

I don't think anyone mentioned that an alternator draws current...lol...That was a typo I meant to say headlights....lol...Anyway your headlights draw a lot of power, put your DMM on the battery for a amp test and see how fast the DMM without an amp clamp will blow... What he's trying to point out is the Big 3 is a waste of time and money. The alternator on a automobile is not a complex piece of equipment with huge potential.. Your alternator is limited on the current it produces NO matter how big your wire is... Look at a road tractor, your not going to find 1/0 gauge wire on the alternator..lol..Trust me I know. Yes, you will find 00 gauge wire on the battery's to the starter because you need hell of a lot of juice just to turn it over... Your going to find mostly 8 gauge wiring on the alternator providing power to a tractor.. If you don't believe it then experiment with it, buy an DMM with an amp clamp and see how much the alternator is putting out with different wire guage... You will be surprised at the results to say the least... Your talking about an alternator that can't put out 130 amps unless your running your truck at 9000RPM.... My god if and automobile alternator was able to produce more power by having a bigger wire then you should upgrade to 2/0 wire...LOL Your one of those unfortunate people like I was at one time who believe in the car audio myths.. You should go out and buy 8 gauge twisted shielded speaker wire and then get some $1000 patch cables....and while your at it buy all Class A/B amps that draw 200 amps a piece..

your NOT listening, Larger wire has less resistance therefore allows more current. The power your alternator is making is not dependent on the size of the wire, however the amount of power transfered is. Here is the recomened current draw when using 8ga Anything above this and your going to be killed by resistance, so you said the titan puts out max of 130 amps well your definately never going to see that running 8ga to the battery.

8 awg 52 amps 430 watts 537 watts

Upgrading the big 3 is a good place to start, although I agree it is likely that it will NOT fix your problem, however if your going to put in a HO alternator, you have to upgrade the big 3 anyways so you might as well start with that.

whereis my $10,000 lol.

I'm not disproving ohms law I am using it to prove he is incorrect in his assumptions.

Oh Yea, and the optima is not a waste either, the yellowtop is a very good battery, I already killed my stock battery once and I did not even have my sub installed and I have teh HD stock battery on my truck lol. HD my ***.

**lizardking** · 08-12-2005, 10:51 PM

We all know bigger wire means more current!!! Your not going to see any improvements, like I said do the test for youself. I don't care if you running 0000 gauge wire your not going to get the alternator to put out more power.. If this was the case I would not need a HO alternator I could just upgrade my wiring to 0000 gauge.. We all understand resistance and the path of least resistance... That is not the point... You can install as many grounds and the biggest power wire and ground wire you can get and you still will have dimming lights in fact it will be worse. I understand what your saying, my point is no matter how big my wires are will not change the power the alternator is providing... Maybe if I took apart the alternator and rewound it tighter it may give me a little more..

"Larger wire has less resistance therefore allows more current" Your not going to get anymore current out of the alternator then what its designed to provide... Like I said upgrade your wiring to whatever size but before you do take some reading with all your accessories on and your system thumping at 3/4 volume. Then do the same test and see how much more power your alts providing after the upgrade.. Now if your talking about a alternator that is able to provide let's say 220 amps (realtime) and you had 16 gauge wiring then yes going to 4 gauge would be an improvement. But in an automobile oem alternator your not going to get any improvements... The alternator is going to put 65 amps at 3000 rpm know matter how big the wire is... Our AC Delco rep did a similiar test for our tech's on starter draw...But we had a source capable of providing more power (4 batteries) hooked up to the jump start do demonstrate to our Tech's the amount of current drawn my the starter...

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one!! Where not getting anywhere, although I think we both are talking somewhat about the same things.. If only we could do some testing... If you can prove RC wrong then email/write him and he will fly you in or he may even come to you... He's offered to do this for so many who backed out..

"He's the invisible man with 10 rules you must follow, if you don't he will send you to a place full of pain, but he loves you!"

**lizardking** · 08-12-2005, 11:11 PM

Oh Yea, and the optima is not a waste either, the yellowtop is a very good battery, I already killed my stock battery once and I did not even have my sub installed and I have teh HD stock battery on my truck lol. HD my ***.

It acutally is a waste you can get a top battery for half the price... The yellow top will do nothing for you other then start your vehicle....Battery has no bearing until the alternator voltage drops below 12.6-12.8

smoketitan · 08-12-2005, 11:37 PM

nice cap those alumapro caps are serious

and if you are to use one thats the one to use all others are useless IMO

Justintoxicated · 08-13-2005, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lizardking

Oh Yea, and the optima is not a waste either, the yellowtop is a very good battery, I already killed my stock battery once and I did not even have my sub installed and I have teh HD stock battery on my truck lol. HD my ***.

It acutally is a waste you can get a top battery for half the price... The yellow top will do nothing for you other then start your vehicle....Battery has no bearing until the alternator voltage drops below 12.6-12.8

Yea but if I had one I could play music with my truck off...For quite a while.

Your still missing the point you do get a little bit more from the alternator! is 8ga is only designed around 50 amps then your losing power from due to the stock wiring every time you go over that. OHMS LAW PROVES THIS.

Re-read the post, providing more power to the entire electrical system by upgrading the alternator wire is NOT going to make your lights dim more, your taking what I said out of context. Less resistance to your lights too man think about it... if EVERYTHING is run off an 8ga wire then increasing the size of that wire does not change the resistance on the wire to your sterio amplifiersd in any way, upgrading the line on your sterio amps jsut reduces resistance also, it makes things more efficient. Sometimes 0ga is needed, I for one did not want to run multiple 4ga wires into my truck....

your lights are NOT wired directly to the alternator. So upgrading the wire that leads to your battery is NOT going to cause them to dim more either. Nor is the 0ga wire to my Distro block, since I'm only running 4ga to the amps themselves anyways.

**lizardking** · 08-13-2005, 12:21 AM

Your not going to get anymore power out of an alternator by putting bigger gauge wire on it.. I take that back you may see 1-2 amps more... Don't waste your time changing or adding your wire..you will not see improvements.. The alternator is limited on the current it will provide.. My point about the headlights is they draw a lot of power.. If you had more power avaliable the amps would suck up the extra power (if the amps are being driven) thus taking away current from vital parts of the electrical system.. So as you say upgrade your wiring gives you more power then the amps would be the one's benefiting not the electrical system of the vehicle... The alternator will provide power to the most demanding component. Thats why lights dim because the amps are taking away the needed current... Upgrading your BIG 3 as you say would make it worse it would give the amp even more power to take away.. But like I said the OEM alternator will only put out what its designed to put out.. Yeah you may see 1-2 amps more...

Justintoxicated · 08-13-2005, 12:37 AM

Upgrading your BIG 3 as you say would NOT give the amp any more ability to take power away from teh headlights.. But like I said the OEM alternator will only put out what its designed to put out..

You obviously don't have a good understand of how electricity works. Adding a larger wire to the battery from the alternator is not going to allow your Amplifiers to drain more energy from than headlights than before, it should actualy HELP because your amps have that much more juice from which to pull. It may however allow yours amps to have a bit more power. The alternator ALWAYS puts out what it is going to put out, but losses in resistance of chincy 8ga can be significant.

Think of current like a river, yes diverting a large portion of the river (0ga) can make body of the river shirnk in size (headlights). But thats not what the big 3 does. Rather the big 3 increases the size of the Lake from which the river runs...

say you have 60 amps of current and your amplifiers are pulling 50 and your headlights 10 and they NEED 15... your going to having diming headlights. How you upgrade your wire and gain 5 amps, now both your amps and headlights are happy...

Again, I'd rather run a 0ga wire into my truck than 2-3 smaller 4 ga wires. Since only 4ga stems from he distro block anyways, it's not going to divert anymore power to the amps than if I had run 2-3 4ga wires. Since it is limited by the output from the block which is a bunch of 4ga wires. What it does do is give me a single grounding point inside the truck to avoid ground loops and for the convienience of having everything in one place.

Runnign the 0ga to the distro block is NOT going to stop my headlights from diming or make it worse or affect it in any way (this is NOT part of the Big 3). Running a 0ga from your alternator to Battery is in NO way going to cause your headlights to dim more, but since less energy is lost as heat it might help them a bit if anything.

I hope you understand now, this is very basic physics.

**lizardking** · 08-13-2005, 12:53 AM

When I was a ASE Certified Master Diesel Tech I had to know the electrical system of vehicles so yeah I do have a pretty good understanding.. That olé river resistance is something I used to explain to my techs about how resistance affects a circuit.

Actually it would hinder if do anything at all to the headlights. If your alternator is able to provide more current then that current would be going to the most demanding component...period... If your alternator is putting out more current that doesn't mean you have extra current for the lights.. I'm not saying that absolutely 100% your going to get a worse dimming light problem. My point would be you would not be improving the dimming light issue if anything I can see how it would hinder. The Big 3 is not the cure all or has been proven to do anything other then here say..

There is nothing wrong with running 1/0 to your distro block, I do the same thing but I'm running serious power.. If I was running what most on this board are running then 4 gauge is more then enough.. My god people should just run welding cable and be done with it and have the most reliable electrical system on the planet...LOL...

The alternator will only put out what's its wound to do, thats it... Will an alternator put out more if the wire is bigger "maybe" if the alternator is being choked to begin with. Your OEM is not going to put out more then it's rated power rather it's got the factory OEM wiring or you add welding cable. There tested at a given output in varying RPM's with varying loads with OEM wiring.. But like I said you may get 1-2 amps more out of her but that will do nothing for you...

Now if you go with a HO alternator that is capable of real power then you put a 16 guage wire on it, yeah big problem... Will you see improvements from 4 to 1/0 very very very very very very very very minimal and nothing that would be noticed..

Ground loop, I ground to the chassis including my head unit's ground... You can actually measure resistance at different points and find locations with equal or as close to equal resistance.. That's what I did... I have absolutely NO noise that is audible to my human ear.. Grounds should be also be as short as possible.. I think the longest ground I have is about 10 inches for the amps and cap. The head unit ground is about 12 inches..

**lizardking** · 08-13-2005, 01:13 AM

With what your running your not going to have dimming lights anyway. Just do what makes you happy, and if you can notice differences in your findings please post it.. If you want wiring with least resistance then don't waste it on car audio cable..(plenty of resistance) get yourself welding cable!

It will be by FAR better then 1/0 cable..

G-nite...

Justintoxicated · 08-13-2005, 09:25 PM

I dunno I looked at welding cable it was about the same as the knukonceptz stuff... Only difference was the Knu looked a bit better in appearance.

You still don't get it though, the path of least resistance is AFTER the 0ga from alternator to battery ALL power travels through this wire... and ALL power has to go through THIS path There is not other PATH, Unless your Assuming the Headlights are connected directly to the Alternator....

SO what your telling me is that increasing power to the Battery, is only going to magicaly lessen the resistance of whatever wires you have going to your Amplifiers so less power will go to your headlights? PLEASE! Not on this planet... NUTS!

I really wish you would understand how crazy this sounds... I don't care if the atholic Church believes in Magic wires, I do not.

4ga to 1? I belive the stock stuff is closer to 8ga. at least that is what I have been told...

And no I do not believe it is a good idea to run multiple 4ga wires off a distro block that has a SINGLE 4ga running to it...That does not make sense either. The idea of running 0ga into your truck is that you do NOT have to run a seperate line for each amp to your battery. Thats All it does... It is NOT going to make your headlights dim more or less, only upgrading the 0ga from the alternator to the battery can get you a few amps that will help that, and yes that just might help your lights from dimming...

**lizardking** · 08-13-2005, 09:43 PM

Welding cable is the least resistance cable your going to find...Look in the right places....

Nobody is talking about resistance but you... The cable size on the Titan is probably 8 gauge, but upgrading to 1/0 will do nothing but you will find out, but then again your not even going to be able to tell a difference.. But then again YOU can tell audible differences in amps...lol...

What amps you going to run that require 4 gauge wire? What's going to be the max wattage your going to run 500-1000? How long is the wire going to be? This should be your deciding factor.. I'm sure with what your planning on running you could run 4 gauge in and 8 to your amps.. I remember when I had about 1000 watts RMS running and ran 4 gauge and 8 to my amps then decided to upgrade to 1/0 then 4 to the amps and it made no difference.. The current the amps where pulling was the same.. But wire is cheap so nothing wrong with over doing it..You may decide to go bigger someday which would save you the hassle...